


Merry Russian Christmas

by scribblemyname



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas, Friendship, Gen, Natasha Romanov Joins SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 17:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20295262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: If he knew there was a job offer riding on this, he’d think the worst of Maria, he would assume things, so Maria didn’t tell him that. She told him the truth. “I want her as a friend.”





	Merry Russian Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).

“She will never be happy here,” Nick Fury stated with a certainty that might have ruffled Maria Hill’s feathers on any other sort of day.

Today, Maria just glanced at him, then back to her partner Phil Coulson and the latest stray he’d dragged into SHIELD headquarters. “Would you like to put money on that?”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “Is this the straitlaced Maria Hill or a clone?”

“Tell you what.” Maria turned to him properly but left her arms crossed. “If recruiting Natalia Romanova does not become the best decision you’ve made at SHIELD by the end of the year, I will happily take on that super special secret project you keep nagging me about. If she does, you give me a promotion I actually want.”

Nick chuckled comfortably. “I like this wager, Agent, but allow me to better it. I’ll make you Deputy Director.”

She caught her breath.

“Anyone who can inspire professional loyalty in the Black Widow can run this organization—_after_ I retire.”

They reached out and shook hands.

“You, sir, have got yourself a deal.”

* * *

Maria was not stupid. She knew that respect comes before trust and giving the Black Widow too much too soon would lose whatever respect they already had, but she welcomed Natalia to SHIELD, showed her the temporary lockdown quarters she’d been issued, and handed over documentation proving they had wiped Natalia from Interpol and American law enforcement organizations.

“The rest will come soon,” Maria told her, meaning ‘after we have reason to believe you won’t abuse it.’ It was January 7. “Merry Christmas.”

Natalia flinched and looked startled. It was all too easy to forget that the most wanted assassin in the world was not even twenty years old. She was still capable of being startled. She nodded at Maria and flipped slowly through the documents, not even looking up when Maria left.

* * *

“She’s my asset,” Phil reminded Maria softly.

“I don’t want her as an asset,” she snapped back. “She’s yours. Noted.”

Phil opened his mouth to say something further, then stopped himself. He furrowed his brow. “What do you want?” he asked.

If he knew there was a job offer riding on this, he’d think the worst of Maria, he would assume things, so Maria didn’t tell him that. She told him the truth. “I want her as a friend.”

* * *

She did tell Natalia the next day. “I told my boss you would be happy here, and he threatened me with a project I don’t want if you aren’t.”

Natalia studied her from behind hooded eyelids. She must have expected as much. “What do you get out of it?” she finally asked in a toneless voice that told Maria nothing.

“A friend. Maybe a better job.” Maria tilted her head in an understated shrug. “You were the only thing that came down my chimney this season. I figured we both deserved something good for Christmas.”

At least the cards were on the table.

The other woman’s expression was unreadable, but after a very long, very quiet moment, she said, “My name is Natasha.”

* * *

Maria brought her books and better meals than what the doctor ordered.

“You are bribing me,” Natasha stated in perfectly accented American English. She looked like a queen, even curled up knees to her chest on the bed in her quarters.

“Not at all,” Maria commented in between bites of heavenly Thai food from that place down the road. She needed to visit it more often. “Give that book back when you’re done with it.” Natasha had a bad habit of keeping anything that disappeared into the gaping maw of her room. “If I ever bring you Phil’s chocolate cupcakes, then you can accuse me of bribing you.”

Natasha looked interested despite herself. “Agent Coulson bakes?”

“Valuable intel and blackmail,” Maria told her breezily. “His cupcakes are phenomenal.”

Natasha blinked, face back to a blank mask, as if she realized she had allowed it to crack. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

* * *

“The first mission is a milk run,” Phil told her with a sigh as he ran through the details in his file. “It’s almost insulting.”

Maria shrugged and finished filling out the after-report on her own recent milk run, a stakeout and file grab. “Wish her good luck for me, mister I’ve been promoted to handler and can’t find anything better to do than complain to my former partner.”

“You should be wishing _me_ luck,” Phil answered mildly, the small smile saying her teasing had worked.

Maria straightened up in her chair suddenly. “Bake me a batch of cupcakes and I’ll give you all the luck in the world.”

He looked at her oddly but the next morning, she found a half dozen chocolate cupcakes on her desk. Maria took them down to Natasha’s quarters where she found the redhead engaged in painful looking stretches and exercises. Maria may have been good, but she had nothing on the other woman’s flexibility.

“Bribe,” she announced, holding up the goods.

Natasha stared at her.

“Bring my former partner back safely, please.” Maria wasn’t sure if this was the smartest thing she had ever done, but… “This is what friends do. We take care of our friends.”

Natasha said nothing for a long moment, then was on her feet with improbable speed. She took a cupcake and bit into it. Finally, she set the cupcake down on her side table and took the entire plate. “I won’t be returning these.”

“Keep the plate,” Maria told her. It was Phil’s but she could find him another white plate with blue checks around the edges. And if she couldn’t, well… “You owe me Yeats.”

“You never read it.”

“Still my book.”

Natasha sniffed and returned the book.

* * *

When Agents Phil Coulson and Natasha Romanova stumbled out of the Quinjet together, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, and limped their way into headquarters, everyone was more than a little surprised. Money changed hands in the ludicrously inappropriate SHIELD betting pool, and Maria crossed her arms beside the infirmary bed where Phil ended up.

“Milk run?” she demanded.

He smiled and started to answer, but Natasha cut him over from the other bed. “I brought him back.”

Both of them looked over then exchanged glances.

Natasha kept reading.

* * *

On January 7, Maria Hill walked into her _locked _office and saw two things on her desk: a copy of Natasha Romanova’s year-end review and a job offer.

Upon further examination, the folder with Natasha’s review included a copy of the requisite psych evaluation, in which Natasha’s only comment on her own state of being was, “I’m happy here.”

Well, then. Merry Russian Christmas.


End file.
